Who said, "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people"?

NathaNsc

Dan Quayle Dec 12 04, 4:15 PM

elizabethmc

yes it is http://www.ssqq.com/archive/vinlin03.htm Dec 12 04, 4:36 PM

infiniti

So poor Dan Quayle was accused of making this statement, but in actual fact it was a Republican congressperson stretching the truth about Dan's stupidity-although why bother when he makes so many stupid comments by himself... In April 1989, Representative Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island told a gathering of Republicans that she had recently attended an event at the Belgian embassy, where Vice-President Quayle complimented her on her command of French. Then, Schneider said, the Vice-President added: "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people." Ms. Schneider concluded by admitting that the story was merely a joke, but not all the newspapers reported it that way. Several publications, either through carelessness or a desire not to let the truth get in the way of a good story, reported the story as true. The culprits included such venerable publications as Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and Time. The fabricated misquote took hold because it sounded exactly like something Dan Quayle (or, more accurately, the Dan Quayle of public perception) would say, and no amount of correction could dislodge it from the public vocabulary. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/quayle.htm Dec 12 04, 9:08 PM